Rest in the Moment

The drama of Lent and Passion of Christ propel us to rise with the Lord on Easter Sunday, but then what? Can that heightened awareness of our Lord and Savior continue throughout the year, and, if so, how?

In Rest in the Moment, poet-writer Christine Sine, who kindly sent me a copy of her book to review, responds to our need for closeness in her “Reflections for Godly Pauses.”

As explained in the Introduction, we have two types of silence: quies, which comes from an absense of noise, and silentium, “an internal, intentional posture of complete attentiveness toward God. It is a silence of making space for, taking time for and paying loving attention to the One we proclaim to be our God and Lord…. It means establishing a quiet inner attitude in which we set aside the distractions of our minds and hearts, draw from the stillness that is within us and commune with God in a very special way.”

After explaining this insightful way to be close to the Lord, the book further provides the means: first, in a meditative poem followed by a brief devotional and relevant scripture, then spaces to respond before closing in prayer.

The twelve meditations in this book get off to a blessed start with the title poem, “Rest in the Moment,” which begins with these lines:

“Rest in this moment of God’s creating.
Savor its beauty.
Inhale its fragrance.
Listen to its music.
Sit in awe of our God-infused world.
Rest in this moment of God’s unfolding….

As the author says in the devotional lines that follow, “This is an elusive rest. It means letting to of control over our schedules and our relationships. Sometimes it means letting go of things that we love to do or people we care about to create time to notice and appreciate the presence of God.”

The Apostle Paul talks about this rest in Philippians 4:11-13, where he says, he’s “learned to be content with whatever I have.”

The pages then turn to our response as we’re asked to consider “What distracts your attention from being fully attentive to God?” For each of us, the answers will differ, of course, and yet each of us can give our “Amen” to the closing prayer, which asks God to “Guide us to rest in each moment and enjoy the revelation of Your love it reveals.”

So? you might ask. What does this have to do with poetry or poetry writing? Perhaps nothing to the secular poet who’s waiting for the Muse to strike, but to me – everything!

If you want your poetry to be insightful, powerful, blessed, and a blessing to your readers, re-read the above discussion, rest well in the Lord, then let your poems flow with new depths and passion.

Mary Harwell Sayler, © 2017, poet-writer, reviewer


Rest in the Moment, paperback



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Review of St. Peter’s B-List

Recently I reviewed Seeing Beauty and Saying Beautifully on my blog, In a Christian Writer’s Life as the book includes essays on three major poets and writers who wrote from a strong perspective of faith in Jesus Christ: George Herbert, George Whitefield, and C.S. Lewis. So, when I received a review copy of St. Peter’s B-List, I expected to review this highly recommended anthology on that blog too. However, these “Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints” fit better here as written by creative seekers whose views occasionally come across as bleak.

Besides making this collection a sign of our religious and literary times, the darker overtones contrast well with the approach taken in the previous review, showing poets and readers the wide range found in religious poetry. As stated in the Introduction, “For a work of art, be it a novel, drama, or poem, to be a ‘good’ work does not mean that the characters are drawn to be morally good but that their speech and actions follow the laws of probability in the human, or natural, world. Good works of literature have intrinsic artistic merit because they avoid sentimentality – the depiction of moral innocence at the expense of qualities of character that remind us of our need for redemption.”

While I see sentimental poems akin to greeting card verse at one extreme end of the spectrum, these poems approach the opposite end, which my poems sometimes do too. As the Introduction explains, such poems “remind us of our need for Christ, regardless of whether the poets themselves explicitly profess this concept in their poems.”

Edited by Mary Ann B. Miller and published by Ava Maria Press, each of the poems in St. Peter's B-List deals honestly with problems and concerns most of us can recognize in ourselves or relate to readily. From homemaking and mothering to showering or lying supine in prayer, the poems speak of a lifetime of topics with words that soothe, shock, amuse, or “put my foot on that first step” in “Desert Ascent.”

Equally commendable is the consistently high quality of the poems, whether written by people I’ve never heard of or by such acclaimed names as Pulitzer poet, Franz Wright, whose poem “Say My Name” ends with the uplifting word of the “Word that means you are loved.”

Ironically, the very quality of the poems keeps me from wanting to single out examples of the situations described, metaphors used, and fresh perspectives found. So, I’ll skip to the back where James Martin, S. J. , wrote an “Afterword,” I wish I’d read initially.

As he says, “The lives of the saints are poems./ In other words, one cannot fully understand a saint’s life from a purely rationalistic point of view. Strictly speaking, they do not make ‘sense’.” He goes on to explain how Mother Theresa, St. Damien, St. Francis, and others responded to God in mysterious ways that often seemed foolish. Or, as Rev. Martin puts it, “The saint’ lives shock….” He then ends with this challenge: “The most important truths about God are not reached with definitions and proofs but by poems and stories…. You are called to be a saint, too. What will your poem be?”


© 2014, Mary Harwell Sayler


St. Peter’s B-list: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints, paperback


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